Hello, SewCC fam!
I'm Kendall-- owner of Sew Custom Costumes, seamstress, designer, dance teacher, chaos coordinator; I pretty much handle it all!
When I tell people that I'm a seamstress with a small business, I always get the STRANGEST looks! The puzzled expression almost always follows with a series of questions similar to these:
- How did you learn to sew?
- What made you decide to turn that into a business?
- Oh. My grandma used to make curtains. That's what you do?
- So what's your real job? ...Oh yeah. This one gets to me.
Thus, this blog post was born!
I have always loved designing. I can remember sitting in elementary school, 5th grade to be exact, designing my dream solo costume. This was the year I first began competing, and I was obsessed with the world of competitive dance! Sadly, this costume never became a reality, as I was at a studio where we primarily wore costumes from catalog companies.
I spent the next several years sketching in my school notebooks and envisioning beautiful costumes! My mom bought me my first custom costume, and I was hooked. It wasn't fancy. There were no stones and no appliques, but it was exactly what I had pictured. A pink dress with black polka dots for my age 13 musical theater solo... you guessed it-- My New Philosophy. This was the same year that my mom and I pieced together a costume for the first time. We started with a base leotard. She sewed pieces to attach, and I embellished them. The end result was a sparkly cat costume for a Cat in the Hat small group. Little did she know, this was only the beginning of the costumes I would suck her into helping me create!
When I was a sophomore, we moved to another area and a new, highly competitive dance studio. After a year at this studio, I talked my Mom into creating a costume for my solo. With the help of another studio mom, and now a close family friend- Hannah, we created my first custom lyrical costume! Mom and Hannah made my dream come to life, and I got to add all the Swarovski at the end!
The next season, Mom and I stepped up our game and not only made my costume but my sisters solo costume too! The designs were much more exquisite, and so were the embellishments. Even so, I was still only designing, hand sewing, and rhinestoning.
I decided to start sewing a few months after graduating high school. I was barely 18 years old. I had accepted a job teaching at one of the states largest and best dance studios, but I had a lot of free time during the day. Besides, dance teachers don't exactly make the big bucks so a little extra income was a plus!
I was (and am still) staying home to home school my sister. (I get more strange facials when I add that in). My nighttime studio hours allowed us to bring her home after I graduated, and we haven't looked back!
In September of 2015, I took a job sewing a group costume for a studio in Nebraska. Why would I do this when I had never done any of the machine sewing?! Your guess is as good as mine- haha! I am an ambitious person, and once I have an idea, I am fast to act!
My Mom taught me how to plug in the machine and sew in a straight line. She helped me draft brief patterns in the sizes I needed, and she helped me cut out costume pieces. She was so patient and never questioned why on earth I decided to do this. (If you're reading this Mom, thank you for being the best!) I received a serger for Christmas, and that was a game-changer! I made our duet costumes, my solo costume, a solo for a close friend, the small group, and did many, many alterations that season. My aquamarine and grey solo costume was a walking advertisement. I got stopped multiple times at each competition and even picked up a few costume awards! Everyone from the studio fell in love, and they all wanted me to sew for them! By the end of the season, I had figured out a decent amount of the sewing through trial and error... then more errors, and more, then finally a pretty costume would appear!
Summer of 2016, I costumed Jon Carr's first full show, Mutual Core. It was such an honor to work with so many talented artists! The front of these costumes were covered in appliques, and each costume was created to match the dancers skin tone.
In fall of 2016, Sew Custom Costumes was born! I took orders for around 30 solo costumes, a small group from the Nebraska studio, and a duet- because making 40+ costumes seemed like fun?! I obviously had NO idea what I was doing in the business world. I always dreamed of opening a dance studio. Costuming was never in the picture. Ever!
Somehow I made it through that first year, and by somehow I mean, I struggled. I was swamped, sewing in the middle of the night (I still do this), and writing everything on notebook paper. Things were anything but organized, but I survived.
Over the next year, I introduced a full made-to-order dancewear line for the first time and continued to try and figure out where I was going with SewCC. Each year, things became a little bit easier and a whole lot busier!
Something really clicked for me in the summer of 2018. I started actively researching, launched a website, and created a real email list. I chose the first set of ambassadors to represent SewCC, and I really focused on growing SewCC into a family. One of my best ideas in the 2018-2019 season was implementing design days. I went from carrying around fabric samples and a notebook to full day design consults. These days get better each year! It is so much fun getting everyone involved in the costume process!
In January of 2019, I hired a business coach to help me figure out things even more. Jennifer Allwood's Creators Inner Circle has been the biggest help in really flipping this hobby into a business! I've grown this little hobby from my Moms kitchen table to a full time biz!
I am now knee deep in my 4th season of SewCC and things have changed SO much! Organization is everything, my season is planned in advance, everything happens on my website or through the SewCC email, and I have finally hired help.
SewCC has become more than a hobby and more than a business-- it's a community and a family! I'm so happy to have you in the Sew Custom Costumes fam, and I can't wait to show you what I have in store for the upcoming years!
